Posts Tagged ‘interview’

Some of us have posted some great pieces that have relied on an audio recording that is then coupled with either archival photos or quirky graphics to visually illustrate the story. This video does something similar, but while taking things in a new direction. In “Holy Cow Lisa” the filmmaker has recorded a conversation between her professor and herself. As we saw in “The Gap,” the video is a chance to be playful and veer a little off course from audio we hear. The video is a place to be imaginative. We know that the filmmaker is experiencing a break up and we get her feeling of what it is like to talk to people about it and feel. We then get the deeper story of her professor’s experience. She again uses interesting and quirky ways to convey the details of his story. Sometimes she uses more straightforward methods with archival photos, but often she is keeping the viewer aroused with unexpected and humorous scenes or graphics. There is a lot of freedom and FUN possible in this kind of filmmaking. She takes this idea of relying solely on an audio bed upon which separately created visuals are placed even further in a piece she made after this video called “the scared is scared.” It’s hard not to love it because of there is a simplicity to it: Just show what the kid is saying. And yet it feels somehow like you are not just seeing word for word what he saying because the filmmaker has so many ways that what he is saying could be shown, so there feels like a big element of surprise. Yes, I know as a viewer that I am about to see exactly what this kid will say, but how will it be shown to me.

As Wes has pointed out so adamantly before, including yourself in your piece is sometimes hard to do without looking like a complete doofus. Eva Sollberger has been doing this Stuck in Vermont series for the local alt-weekly there for about seven years now, and she does a spectacular job of including herself without making it be focused on herself. It adds a nice personable connection to her work and also brings a degree of ease to the people she’s interviewing. It’s really something I’m contemplating doing with my Deadhead Bowling league piece.

Eva films and edits all these pieces herself, and puts out one a week. It’s actually really interesting to watch early episodes and compare them to brand new ones – you can see how easy she now makes it look. The other part that arises from her including herself in each piece is the fact that her viewers become comfortable with her and thus are more apt to watch videos on topics they may otherwise skip over.

The video I’ve included is one that comes at just about a year and a half into her program. It’s got great cuts, solid uses of time-lapse, non-cheesy use of text on screen, and also some great footage on one really cool music nerd in particular.

In honor of our interviews this week, here’s an entertaining video that has some real world interview skills incorporated. I chose it because it’s a succinct way to watch an interview, not fall asleep, and get some useful tips.

1) The pieces is framed well, with a combination of full body and close up head shots. The editing weaves between the two based on the timing of the narrative, which enhances the effect of what the interviewee is saying

2) They used a shallow lens so that many times, just the interviewers face is fully in focus, with his body and background softly faded. This puts an emphasis on the emotions and the story that is being told.

3) While they use jump cuts, it adds a certain feeling to the piece which is in line with what the actor is saying. I enjoyed this effect, as I felt like it made the interview more dynamic. Thoughts?

MediaChannel.org describes itself as “a non-commercial and not-for-profit network of media analysis presented in the public interest.” This segment, featuring a discussion between the Editor-In-Chief of MediaChannel.org Danny Schechter and economist and professor Richard Wolf, addresses people who are media consumers and also media creators to discuss the changing landscape of media, problems with concentration in media ownership, and ideas to change media to better serve the needs of the people.

Along with interesting political and economical insight into what is happening in America and in the world, it does serve as an example of a one camera, two-person interview set-up. It’s interesting to see how and when they display their credentials on screen, but to also note that they don’t seem to use any other visuals such as stills or b-roll footage. Whether or not this interview style works or not is up to you. Maybe the content is interesting enough to hook you into finishing the video, and for others that might not be the case. What I love about this video is the lively discussion and major question it poses: should the structure of media function as a democracy?